I beat a tattoo on the inside of my skull, culling thoughts of anxiety and propriety in exchange for serenity. I let it be and limit me from what’s to be seen in dreams and between the seams on the duvet cover. Loathing at a self-lover fades away, to a blackish gray, and ravens land and say what they may. The tattoo beats itself thin, of kin and ken, and ends up a butterfly, monarch orange and black refracting decimals of measurement. Sent down by heaven this eleven hour spurt of anger and hurt is fading. Shading me from the seven sins is tough shins and a tattered red and white coat, from the bloated mass of Santa Claus himself. Shelved for somebody like me, who wanted to be free of mind and body, nodding to me with grace and saved face, cutting holes in the back for my elegant wings to fit. Things of kingly disposition, as red and orange and white. Listen for vibrations on the airwaves.
The drum roll sounds, continues the pounding of the tattoo. It breaks through the bone, through stone, to the sky, flying there with sly spirits of the wind. Grin breaks across the face, reach into an empty cavity, a calamity now quelled by that freed within. Tin plating shearing my dusty coat further as the wind spirits giggle. I jiggle my hand past the butterfly hole, old king coal and goldilocks, fables chalked up to childhood. And thus I could, I bluster and muster up the emotion of sleepless ambition, given up for lost, but the cost inside the wounded cranium, the insanitarium-aquarium of mind is low, thus a constant flow of creativity ebbs forth, rising on the backs of wind spirits and butterflies, size increasing as they ascend to the sky.
I sought nothing more than being, seeing as existence was so hard, breaking off shards of my heart, piece by piece, fragmentation grenades each and every one, spawning loaded guns – firing darts of crystallized arteries. Part of me wept and kept the bits, but guitar frets kept the song, and I kept the last existence. Good riddance to the parts I didn’t need. It’ll make the leftovers taste the sweeter.
